This is the story of the wolf Little Lobo and his dog Bernabé. They eat breakfast, and then they head out to deliver supplies to people at the Mercado, the marketplace near where they live. On their way, we see their neighbors and take in all the many details of Little Lobo’s Mexican community. These are bustling spreads, but Raúl knows how to compose a spread well; in part, his palette choices make it easy for our eyes to follow the action, see all the details, and read the Spanish labels, marked in a red font, for what we see. As the Kirkus review notes, Little Lobo’s journey serves as “a crash course in Mexican culture.” In the end, Little Lobo even gets a big surprise, the chance to meet his hero, but I won’t spoil it for you.

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.

My kicks this week are rolled into one: US Womens National Soccer Team World Cup Champions!!!!
They are so awesome and so inspiring – just love them – and it was a great game too – the Dutch played really hard and really well.

Bonus kick – sweet Daisy had another great post-op vet visit and is now cleared for going on walks again. Really happy with her great veterinarian and her great rehab team too – they’ve done a great job for my sweet senior velvet hippo.